The invention relates to compositions, methods, and apparatuses for removing mercury and other heavy metals from industrial wastewater via the use of a filtration system and other separation systems. Due to stringent environmental regulations and/or water shortage, industries have to remove heavy metals from their wastewaters before discharge or reuse. Most of the wastewaters are treated by commodity dithiocarbamate (DTC) and/or (TTC) trithiocarbonate chemistries or specialty polymeric DTC compounds and then the precipitated metals are separated in a clarifier. In recent years, ultrafiltration (UF) or microfiltration (MF) membranes are increasingly being used for solid-liquid separation instead of clarifier, as UF/MF membrane processes are much compact and result in water with very high quality (almost no suspended solids and negligible turbidity). The UF or MF permeate can be reused with or without any further treatment, depending on purpose of reuse. More importantly, membrane filtration allows further higher metal removal to meet stringent metal discharge limits in the ppb (parts per billion) or ppt (parts per trillion) concentration range. As a result there is a clear need for and utility in novel compositions, methods, and apparatuses for removing mercury and other heavy metals from industrial wastewater via the use of a filtration system.
The art described in this section is not intended to constitute an admission that any patent, publication or other information referred to herein is “prior art” with respect to this invention, unless specifically designated as such. In addition, this section should not be construed to mean that a search has been made or that no other pertinent information as defined in 37 CFR §1.56(a) exists.